Gypsum is pleased to present I, Pet Lion, the first solo show at the gallery by Egyptian artist Mohamed Monaiseer. Through the exploration of children’s strategy board games and war paraphernalia, Monaiseer’s body of work scrutinizes the desensitization of war through the act of play.
Triggered by political events, colonial histories and religious beliefs, Monaiseer’s compelling practice often utilizes handiwork and repetitive gestures to create potent ruminations on his subject matter. Through embroidery, painting, and drawing, the recurrence of single words and figures brings to the surface mediations of cultural symbols and historical events.
For the body of work in I, Pet Lion, Monaiseer’s early research began by drawing similarities between the strategies required in board games - such as chess and Ludo - and the framework of war and colonization. Chess has historically been compared to a battleground, simulating warfare through the act of conquering the enemy and the idealistic idea of achieving total victory. Similarly, Ludo requires players to move into an opponent’s base, mimicking the act of invading land. Reckoning with such militaristic representations in children’s games, Monaiseer’s beaded embellishments on chess grids bring to the fore how strategies of warfare are consumed and concealed through the guise of play.
Through means of repetition, Monaiseer’s stylized depictions of toy soldiers and model airplanes continue to investigate the sinister connotations behind children’s games while emphasizing their prevalence in popular media. His patterned compositions of airplanes, which reference how fighter jets are parked in military airports, mimic the arcade space combat shooting game “Galaxy Game”. Further, his depictions of seemingly friendly soldiers, similar to that of the iconic English Guard, appear reminiscent of enticing military recruitment propagandist posters. The recurrence of such images hints at how young children’s and adolescents’ perceptions are distorted by the overwhelmingly unrealistic imagery of war.
Beyond the act of children’s play, Monaiseer further engages with how nations and militaries utilize heraldic imagery on flags, shields, and banners to identify with the state and military. Through cut-outs of animalistic symbols - such as lions, dragons, and other medieval mythological creatures - superimposed onto shields, banners, chess grids, and found canvas used to cover military tanks - his work references how such militaristic symbols are used to fabricate a sense of national identity. Furthermore, Monaiseer’s alluring embroidered works reference the celebrated and publicly displayed British Crown Jewels which come from a legacy of looting from colonized countries - exploring the notion of beauty at the cost of rooted violent and colonial histories.
Questioning representations of power, the show’s title refers to a paradoxical outlook on power which positions a lion as a ‘friendly’ protective authority that can also be hostile and threatening. By drawing on the normalization and pervasiveness of military symbology, and its role in forming national identity, the show invites us to rethink such inherently violent vocabularies.
Mohamed Monaiseer (b. 1989, Cairo) is an Egyptian artist whose work spans painting, drawing, and embroidery. He received his BA in Educational Art from Cairo University, and has exhibited works in Cairo, London, Bahrain, Beirut, Jeddah, and Dubai. His solo shows include Adrift in the Labyrinth of a Parallel Mind, Athr Gallery, Jeddah (2019); Taxidermy Dreams, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai (2019) and Townhouse Gallery, Cairo (2018); Barzakh, Safarkhan Gallery, Cairo (2015); and Muted, Safarkhan Gallery, Cairo (2014). Monaiseer has participated in residencies including Can Serrat, El Bruc (2023); La Place, Barcelona (2019); Delfina Foundation, London (2019); and Mass Alexandria, Alexandria (2016). He lives and works in Cairo.